CISPA is back with a new name

http://www.cispaisback.org/?t=dXNlcmlkPTUyMjM4MjE3LGVtYWlsaWQ9ODgzNw==

by fur0n • 12 years ago

259 41 12 years ago

tool• 12 years ago

"Places online where you can expect privacy: Facebook"

I'd rather be spied upon by NSA any day over Facebook. Atleast then I know how my information is being used. But oh right, NSA doesn't have a website where you can show off your socio economic status.

Ygg22• 12 years ago

Between having my hand blown off and sawed off, I'd prefer neither.

VMG• 12 years ago

Atleast then I know how my information is being used.

PhasmaFelis• 12 years ago

Facebook's never imprisoned or tortured anyone that I'm aware of. Maybe that'll be in a future rollout.

Ygg22• 12 years ago

Yup, just enabled those that do. Good for them. Keeping their hands clean.

Andrenid• 12 years ago

This is the problem. It's less effort for them to keep bringing it back under different names/guises, than it is for the general public to continue fighting it, continue raising enough attention against it, etc.

People are lazy. You can rile them up to get critical mass for an action every now and then, but you can't sustain it forever.

higherpurpose• 12 years ago

This wouldn't be as big of a problem as it is for both the population who has to stay extremely vigilant (more than they want to) just so they don't pass something quickly and in secret/when no one pays attention (like at holidays), and also the Supreme Court wouldn't be barraged with bad laws from Congress (and these laws don't even reach them for decades sometimes), if US was using a Constitutional Court.

I think having a Constitutional Court that verifies every single bill that passes through Congress and administration, and has final say on whether a bill is going to become law or not, would be a decent solution for an out of control Congress and administration that don't even care if their laws are Constitutional or not anymore.

This is not to "replace" the Supreme Court, or any other Court. this is in addition to them. A Constitutional Court could filter out a lot of the bad bills, before they ever had to reach the Supreme Court for their unconstitutionality. With a Constitutional Court something like the Patriot Act or FAA might've never passed, and we wouldn't have to endure it for 20 years before it even reaches the Supreme Court, to decide its constitutionality.

But what happens if a Constitutional Court allows a "bad bill" to pass anyway, you ask? Well, nothing different than right now. It goes out there, and eventually someone sues over it, and it goes through the same process up to the Supreme Court, if it's that bad. The point of the Constitutional Court wouldn't be to "set a precedent" but to filter out at least 90 percent of bad/unconstitutional bills coming out from Congress. Other than that, everything else will work as normal.

The system is already used in many European countries, and I think it would work well for US, too. Without it a lot of EU countries would probably have a lot worse justice system, since they don't even have the precedent thing, which means that if a lot more bad bills were allowed to go through, they would have a lot more judges split on the decisions, and more unconstitutional laws would be allowed to continue for more years. But the Constitutional Court filters out most of those, so the judges can only be split on a few of the bad ones.

baddox• 12 years ago

I'm skeptical that adding another layer for the bill to pass through will cause any meaningful improvement, unless there is some clever way to align the incentives of the individuals in the layer more closely with the people.

chroem• 12 years ago

Still, though, the weak link remains that everyone has to trust these officials will actually uphold the constitution. Unless we can develop something more binding than swearing on a Bible, we're going to keep coming back to this same problem.

That's not to say I don't like the idea of a constitutional court, though. I just think we need to also add some sort of protections against blatantly unconstitutional actions.

cowbell• 12 years ago

Don't you think that would end up like the patent office? Rubber stamps for everyone...

I think a far more effective solution would be to require all laws be version controlled on a publicly available site. Something like github for Congress. No more need to reference Act 737 Paragraph 3 section 2 part H. It's just a diff at that point. It would make it very clear who is proposing changes to what. Combine passage with a code review process so that everyone can see who voted for/against/abstain and why for everything, ever.

The NSA can view the totality of everything we do. Why are we still unable to view the totality of what Congress is up to? 300,000,000 Americans private lives are under total surveillance, while we can't even monitor the supposedly public activity of a measly 600 people.

snitko2• 12 years ago

Precisely the reason why government can never represent the will of the people. For regular people it's hard to project their will onto government, but for rich entities with lobbyists it is much easier. A politician, after elected, has very little incentive to serve his voters and all the incentives in the world to serve those who give him money. Voters, unlike lobbyists, cannot stop paying [tax] money.

dan_bk• 12 years ago

but for rich entities with lobbyists it is much easier

I still don't understand why lobbying - a socially accepted form of corruption - still exists, without being questioned. Even more so as, today, everybody knows that 1% control most of the wealth == lobbying == legislation == our lives.

switch0072• 12 years ago

The UK is also passing "emergency" data retention legislation just before Parliament closes for summer and before the data is deleted. http://dataretentionandinvestigatorypowersbill.uk

fredley• 12 years ago

I just checked my MP on Twitter. So far one person has tweeted to her about it. It makes me think the levels of apathy are just too high here for anybody to make a difference.

switch0072• 12 years ago

Well, I contacted my MP. I'm not holding my breath with this voting record:

* Voted very strongly against paying higher benefits over longer periods for those unable to work due to illness or disability

* Voted very strongly for increasing the rate of VAT

* Voted very strongly against raising welfare benefits at least in line with prices

* Voted very strongly for reducing central government funding of local government

* Voted a mixture of for and against a wholly elected House of Lords

AlyssaRowan2• 12 years ago

Just so you know, they're pulling the same kind of shit over here in the UK: "emergency powers" being pushed through with barely a debate by an unelected PM, his lapdog deputy in the Lib Dems, and a weak opposition, with tripartisan support thanks to the party whips. No one even really knows or understands what they're agreeing to, the "temporary" shouldn't fool anyone as it can be extended (and it would be an 'emergency' not to, wouldn't it?) - and the real kicker is that the "emergency" is the EU courts have ruled the UK's existing mass data retention laws contravene our human rights, so the UK Government's response is to… pass another mass data retention law as a matter of urgency, explicitly before ISPs start deleting (unlawfully collected) data.

What the fuck. Sometimes politicians just disgust me. We could use some help over here too - Pirate Party UK, maybe, or the Green Party?

__P2• 12 years ago

Could an alternative DNS system fix this? Tor for DNS that both masked the lookup and the resulting IP would stop any type of filtering/blocking/take down etc? Coupled with https, to stop packet inspection?

Sharlin• 12 years ago

Social and political problems are rarely fixed with engineering solutions.

octagonal• 12 years ago

Vote for pro-EU parties. Or really any party that isn't UKIP.

This would not have happened if the UK had listened to the ECHR or the ECJ.

nly• 12 years ago

Vote for pro-EU parties

This basically pans down to the Greens or the Lib Dems. The former have just one voice, Caroline[0], in the House of Commons. The latter is led by the guy standing alongside the Prime Minister as this "emergency legislation" was announced, and offered his vocal support. In any case, the Lib Dems will also likely be ground in to dust in the coming general election: currently polling at <10%[1], down from about 25-30% prior to the last[2]. So, even if they were successful at moderating Government policy with respect to social liberties, they soon won't matter.

[0] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQYutZb2iGk

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_Un...

[2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7511352/poll-t...

makomk• 12 years ago

Won't help that much. The existing laws were actually EU laws that a previous UK government had pushed for, essentially using the EU's lack of democratic accountability to make sure voters didn't have a say in it. This happens quite a bit. The only reason they're resorting to this trick is because their usual EU-based one failed.

martiuk• 12 years ago

PPUK needs all the help it can get, the Greens might also be a good choice but be aware of their occasional technophobia.

kmfrk• 12 years ago

Follow @tom_watson for more info on this (https://twitter.com/tom_watson).

jdpage• 12 years ago

I know this is Serious Business, but all I can think is -- have these people not SEEN Star Wars?

opendais• 12 years ago

I think they are aware of the issues and just don't care. Like most things, 90% of people aren't going to be obviously impacted.

It will only be the people they want to give the shaft too. To make matters worse, the majority of those people will actually deserve it which will give them the cover they need. :/

I think comparing David Cameron to the Emperor is a bit of a stretch. ;)

KhalPanda• 12 years ago

The infographic around half way down the page is really well put together.

zactral• 12 years ago

The problem is that for people living outside the US, we already have the right side of the infographic. All our data is vacuumed in and used with impunity and nobody gives a damn whether we want it or not. Most of the discussion so far has been about the circumstances and illegality of spying after US citizens. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is left watching like second or third class human beings who can't have _any_ realistic expectations with regard to having privacy of their data used by US companies (which dominate the market due to several reasons)

uptown• 12 years ago

The infographic mentions that "Corporate lobbyists have spent $605 million to get this legislation passed".

These pages show which corporations are supporting this (links towards the bottom):

http://maplight.org/us-congress/bill/113-hr-624/1202831/tota...

snarfy2• 12 years ago

Hey California, why is Feinstein still in office?

SOPA, PIPA, CISPA, CISPA v2, now CISA.

cheepin• 12 years ago

because voting her out would likely require voting in a republican, which doesn't seem overly likely against an incumbent.

snarfy2• 12 years ago

This makes sense, depressing, apathy-inducing sense.

CISPA is back with a new name

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